I hope now that the football season has started we are not going to get Sheffield Wednesday plastered all over The Star day in day out.

If that’s the case I will save a fortune not buying the paper until next May.

Don’t forget there are two football teams in Sheffield, one with a decent stadium, one with a shed.

Brenda Titterton

Chesterfield

Misleading graphics

I normally like your ‘In Graphics’ series but was somewhat startled to read Saturday’s, (August 4), which gave a very misleading statement on who pays what in the European Union.

Germany and the UK are actually the top two net contributors not Germany and France, (which is actually the fourth net contributor), while Spain and Poland far from being major contributors are major net recipients of EU funds.

Terry Horan

Beechwood Rd, S6

Barefaced cheek

Many people are suffering discomfort in the current hot weather, especially those of advanced years and/or ample proportion such as myself. Having unsuccessfully trawled the TV channels all evening from my “working” armchair in the hope of finding something of interest, I ventured to bed in the wee small hours.

Because of the heat I decided to put on my best birthday suit and lay on top of the duvet. With hindsight I would have been better off wearing a suit of armour. Turning off the light and reclining on the bed, I was slowly entering the Land of Nod when I was startled by a sudden sting in my left posterior. I involuntarily shifted my position only to be stung on the right side. What bare- faced cheek! “Jumping” out of bed I switched on the light and examined the duvet for signs of the culprit, was it a bee or wasp?

Using my Sherlock Holmes deduction I quickly ruled out the bee who only stings once and then dies. My greedy assailant had dined twice on me so it was probably a wasp. Unfortunately my mysterious UFO assailant had disappeared, perhaps having “flown the coop”? I was wondering whether this was all a bad dream until I touched my violated cheeks and felt two rapidly forming painful lumps on them. Quickly applying some insect treatment cream I ventured back to bed to spend the rest of the night in fitful sleep. The initial stinging pain has now overnight become an irritating itch where when scratched an X marks the spot!

Cyril Olsen

Busk Meadow, Sheffield, S5

Recycling services

We await the roll-out of Sheffield’s “improved” recycling service.

We will have three big bins per household, further cluttering up our streets. Brown and blue recycling bins will only be collected separately on alternate fortnights. Sheffield is miles behind other South Yorkshire councils at the bottom end of the national recycling league tables – that won’t improve after these changes.

We’re told that a public consultation failed to back proposals to replace individual bins with larger communal dumpster bins in parts of the city. Actually only 24 roads meeting certain criteria were consulted. 13 of them are in my ward and, with a significant number of student houses, most of those failed to get the 30 per cent response rate required. That was hardly surprising as the consultation finished days before lease periods ended and most students will be living in different areas when the bin changes happen this autumn.

We’ve been speaking to local residents and I know this consultation has been frustrating for Harcourt Community Action, representing residents on Harcourt Road in Crookesmoor. It’s a model for good relations between students, mainly living on one side, and longer-term residents, mainly living on the other. They have been trying to get a communal bin solution piloted on the road since 2016. Only the student side of the road was included in the consultation so just three responses were received. They now face the prospect of managing 450 bins for 483 residents and approximately 174 bins will have to be left on the pavement. This will further exacerbate issues of blocked pavements, fly tipping, and nuisance to wheelchairs and buggies.

Communal bins are a serious option to consider on cluttered pavements on densely populated roads, especially where there are no front gardens or steps down that prevent off-street bin storage. Residents on a number of roads clearly voted against based on their local circumstances. But it would be wrong for additional communal bins to be written off across the city on the basis of this very small, flawed consultation.

Coun Kaltum Rivers

Green Party, Broomhill & Sharrow Vale ward

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